View allAll Photos Tagged Hummingbird
Still trying to figure this out. Best try today but with some ghosting still. Ruby-throated Hummingbird at Eagle Creek Park, Indiana.
Amy spotted this hummingbird outside our living room. Surpisingly he hovered around long enough for me to run upstairs and grab a camera.
Range: North, Central, and South America
Habitat: Wide variety of habitats, from sea level up to 16,500 feet (5,000 meters)
Little birds with big appeal
Hummingbirds include the smallest birds in the world, but they belong to one of the largest group of birds, the Trochilidae family. These enchanting birds are found in deserts, mountains, and plains, but most live in tropical rain forests. Their name refers to the humming sound made by their tiny, beating wings; each species creates a different humming sound, depending on the speed of its wing beats. In the Caribbean, people call the hummingbird el zunzun. These energetic dynamos have been around for ages; hummingbird fossils found in Germany are said to be more than 30 million years old.
There are 328 hummingbird species. The smallest is the bee hummingbird from Cuba, and the largest is the giant hummingbird from South America. Hummingbird bills come in different sizes and shapes, too. The long, slender bill is adapted to collect nectar from flowers. The bill protects the long, split tongue and allows each hummingbird species to feed from specific types of flowers. Hummingbirds are called nectivores, because about 90 percent of their diet is the nectar from flowers. They also snack on insects, which they often catch by “hawking.” A hummingbird “hawks” insects by flying and diving to snap them up out of the air.
These are my first photos of any hummingbird and to say I'm amazed they turned out so well is an understatement.
The smallest breeding bird in the US. This beautiful male was spotted by Ronda and Eileen at the Botanical Gardens in Grand Junction, and I had to go check it out!
Four little hummingbirds sucking up nectar from the feeder and not minding me standing with them taking photos. Of course, I couldn't keep my eye on the chicken on the bar-b-que and it got pretty toasted. But worth it for the entertainment factor.
Since moving to Texas one of the things I really enjoy is just sitting on the back patio at sunrise listening to the world wake up. Recently we picked up a hummingbird feeder - one of our best buys ever! We have at least 4 regular visitors but one is clearly territorial and chases the others off - it is fascinating to watch them dart and have high speed mid-air dog (bird?) fights.
I like how these photos turned out but it's not easy shooting these birds - they are very quick - they remind me of Heather, my better half, bounding over trees or big rocks like a gazelle.
I wonder if I can use these hummingbirds as an excuse for getting a 400mm or bigger telephoto lens?
P.S. Bella the dog was not the least bit impressed by the whole show.
I'll be leaving Arizona tomorrow to fly home. I came here mostly to watch the hummingbird migration (although I picked up an assignment for Birds and Blooms while I was here).
As you can see, the Hummingbirds were a bit elusive. Rarely more than 100 at a time fighting over the feeders. It's going to take days with the field guides to ID all the shots I got. I'm pretty sure this is a Broad-tailed. He is perched on the fingers of Chris West - a local birding guide.
I swapped him a couple of these photos in return for taking me out to get a photo of a Common Poorwill (a life-bird to boot).
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Mr. HelloYarn got all David Attenborough on the hummingbirds today and waited until they bravely came near to drink so he could take photos.
They're funny little buggers, starting fights with each other and hogging the food.
This is the little hummingbird I saved a couple of days ago.
The Story behind this photo:
Yesterday morn I let our two cats out to let them eat in peace before letting the dogs out of their crates. After about a half an hour, I finally went to get the dogs. But I heard fluttering in the skylight on our back porch. The cats were watching intently & as I approached, I saw a tiny green hummingbird frantically beating himself against the top of the skylight. I grabbed up the cats, threw them in the garage. I went and got a kitchen chair and dish towel ... thinking that I might just throw it over the bird and capture him. But standing wobbly-legged on the chair, I decided that wasn't such a great idea after all. Then I got a bright idea. I remembered that there were some fallen branches out in our yard. So I grabbed a long stick with twigs on the end and ran back to the porch. I carefully stuck it up into the skylight where the poor bird was still fluttering away. Immediately, the exhausted hummer latched onto a twig & I slowly lowered him down and out over the railing. I placed the stick in the top of a rhododendron bush. He sat there for at least five minutes (while I happily photographed him) before flying away. Had I let the dogs out earlier, I would have never noticed that little hummer and surely he would dropped down out of sheer exhaustion and become a tasty morsel for one of my patient cats or a play toy for our dogs.
Taken at 20x zoom.
Aldrich Park, UCI
Exposure: 0.05 sec (1/20)
Aperture: f/5.7
Focal Length: 100 mm
ISO Speed: 80
The bench we sat on in front of the feeders was right next to a hummingbird feeder, and this Anna's Hummingbird was pretty cooperative.
There was a beautiful bright pink male around as well, but it would never perch on the right side of the feeder, and the Magnificent Hummingbirds never stuck around for long enough.
The female/young male Anna's is still pretty fun, though.
One of seven species of Hummingbirds that come into North America. Only the Ruby Throat goes as far north as Canada.
Rufous Hummingbird feeding from an agastache flower. The agastache has just started flowering, pretty late in the summer as far as the hummers are concerned.